Black Feminist Voices in Politics

In Black Feminist Voices in Politics, Evelyn M. Simien charts a course for black women’s studies in political science. Examining the simultaneous effects of race and gender on political behavior, Simien uses a national telephone survey sample of the adult African American population to discover the extent to which black women and men support black feminist tenets. At the heart of this book are answers to such questions as: How does the absence of black feminist voices impair our understanding of group consciousness? What factors make individuals more or less likely to adopt black feminist views? Are men just as likely as women to support black feminist tenets? Simien analyzes the survey data, responds to limitations of existing research, and addresses critical questions that many black academics, intellectuals, and activists have devoted significant energy to debating without much empirical evidence.

Title Page

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to many people who have supported me throughout
the process of writing this book. I am very grateful for the financial
support provided to me initially by my dissertation advisor, William
R. Shaffer, in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University,
who sponsored me for the Purdue Research Foundation Grant....

1. CHARTING A COURSEFOR BLACK WOMEN’S STUDIES IN POLITICAL SCIENCE

This book represents a conscious and deliberate effort to chart a
course for black women’s studies in political science. According to
Mack Jones, distinguished professor of political science at Clark
Atlanta University and founding president of the National Conference
of Black Political Scientists, the responsibility of black political
scientists is to “develop a political science which grows out of...

2. FROM MARGIN TO CENTER: African American Women and Black Feminist Theory

On May 4, 1884, Ida B. Wells took a seat in the ladies’ coach on a
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad train en route to her teaching job in
Woodstock, Tennessee (Mulane 1993; Hine and Thompson 1998).
Since the 1875 Civil Rights Bill guaranteeing equal treatment in public
accommodations had been repealed, the railroad was operating...

On February 27, 1869, the Fifteenth Amendment passed in the
United States Congress. Prior to its passage, Frederick Douglass argued
at a meeting of the Equal Rights Association that the ballot was
“desirable” for women, but “vital” for black men because women
were not as threatened by extreme acts of terror. As Douglass put it...

In 1803, Maria W. Stewart was born in Hartford, Connecticut.
Both of her parents, about whom little else is known except that
they were African and freeborn, died by the time she was five years
old (Sterling 1984; Richardson 1987; Waters 2000; Andrews
2003). From the time of their deaths until she was fifteen, Maria...

In 1863, Mary Church Terrell was born in Memphis, Tennessee.
Both of her parents were former slaves; however, neither one experienced
the hardships of plantation life (Sterling 1979). Her father,
Robert Church, was considered the richest black man in Memphis
and perhaps the first black millionaire in the South. He secured his
wealth at a time when the yellow fever epidemic plagued the residents...

EPILOGUE: Stability and Change in Attitudes toward Black Feminism

One thing about African American public opinion is clear. Both the
women’s liberation and the civil rights movements have had a profound
effect on attitudes toward gender equality and feminist priorities
among African Americans. It is not so much the case that
black civil society has come to embrace feminisms, nor has it come...

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